It's so easy to underestimate Alan Ayckbourn. The fact that his plays tend to be comedies focusing on the beleaguered suburban middle classes does not preclude the revelation of profound,
uncomfortable truths about the human condition.

This assured revival of his masterful 1973 trilogy, showing in London for the first time in 34 years, usefully reminds us to take the laughter very seriously.

Loveless marriages, loveless non-marriages: there is hardly a shred of unmitigated happiness to be found in Table Manners, Living Together or Round And Round The Garden.

Yet what prevents us from turning to Ibsen for a spot of light relief are some of the most blissful comic set-pieces and guffaw-out-loud moments British theatre has produced.

Never has the carrying of a waste-paper basket generated such mirth.

The action of the three plays — which can be seen in any order, although I would recommend starting with Table Manners, the funniest and most illuminating — runs simultaneously, from the Saturday night to Monday morning of a fractious family gathering.

Norman (Stephen Mangan) has been thwarted in his attempt to whisk sister-in-law Annie (Jessica Hynes) away for a dirty weekend in East Grinstead, much to the amusement of his wife Ruth (Amelia Bullmore) and bemusement of Annie’s dithering would-be partner Tom (Ben Miles).

Other brother Reg (Paul Ritter) and his spouse Sarah (Amanda Root) also have plenty to say on the matter.

The Old Vic auditorium has been successfully reconfigured in the round for this project and director Matthew Warchus makes the most of these new possibilities with a fluid, involving production.

Nonetheless he doesn’t always get the comedy to spin and fizz as it might, and there are occasional longueurs where dramatic momentum ought to be.

Although it’s fun to spot cross-references between the pieces, Warchus also fails to make a compelling case for revisiting the same scenario three times over.

There’s lovely work from Hynes as the dishevelled Annie, left by her siblings to care for their bedbound mother.

Ritter, all tight slacks, gives the standout turn in the unshowy role of Reg, the archetypal henpecked Seventies husband with the razor-sharp beak.

It’s Mangan who upsets the delicate acting equilibrium with his overgrown puppy of a Norman.

For us to make it successfully through to Monday morning, we need to know more than he reveals about the motivation for Norman’s amorous kamikaze act.

Until 20 December (0870 060 6628). www.oldvictheatre.com